AT THE beginning of spring much of Europe shut down to slow the spread of covid-19, which has infected nearly 3m people and taken the lives of about 200,000 in the continent’s 54 countries and territories, from the Atlantic to the Urals. The first wave of infections appears largely to have abated. Countries are returning to some semblance of normality—albeit with social-distancing measures in place. Now that governments are loosening restrictions on their citizens, the fear is that the virus could return.

Whether it is a second wave or just the continuation of the first, one thing is certain: covid-19 in America is getting worse. On July 23rd the number of confirmed cases in the country surpassed 4m, with new infections increasing at an alarming rate of 70,000 a day. President Donald Trump, who has sought to downplay the severity of the pandemic, conceded on July 21st that things “will get worse before they get better”.

IN THE SOUTHERN English town of High Wycombe, the MP, mayor and councillors are publicly weighed every year in the town centre, in a self-described attempt to deter them from “gaining weight at taxpayers’ expense”. Cheers erupt if a lawmaker has shed a few pounds; boos await those who have put any on. The centuries-old tradition is conducted largely in jest, but the townsfolk might be on to something.

The more overweight the government, the more corrupt the country, according to a new study of 15 post-Soviet states. The study’s author, Pavlo Blavatskyy of Montpellier Business School in France, used an algorithm to analyse photographs of almost 300 cabinet ministers and estimate their body-mass index (BMI), a measure of obesity. He found that the median BMI of a country’s cabinet is highly correlated with its level of corruption, as measured by indices compiled by the World Bank and Transparency International (see chart).

IN THE SOUTHERN English town of High Wycombe, the MP, mayor and councillors are publicly weighed every year in the town centre, in a self-described attempt to deter them from “gaining weight at taxpayers’ expense”. Cheers erupt if a lawmaker has shed a few pounds; boos await those who have put any on. The centuries-old tradition is conducted largely in jest, but the townsfolk might be on to something.

The more overweight the government, the more corrupt the country, according to a new study of 15 post-Soviet states. The study’s author, Pavlo Blavatskyy of Montpellier Business School in France, used an algorithm to analyse photographs of almost 300 cabinet ministers and estimate their body-mass index (BMI), a measure of obesity. He found that the median BMI of a country’s cabinet is highly correlated with its level of corruption, as measured by indices compiled by the World Bank and Transparency International (see chart).

IN THE SOUTHERN English town of High Wycombe, the MP, mayor and councillors are publicly weighed every year in the town centre, in a self-described attempt to deter them from “gaining weight at taxpayers’ expense”. Cheers erupt if a lawmaker has shed a few pounds; boos await those who have put any on. The centuries-old tradition is conducted largely in jest, but the townsfolk might be on to something.

The more overweight the government, the more corrupt the country, according to a new study of 15 post-Soviet states. The study’s author, Pavlo Blavatskyy of Montpellier Business School in France, used an algorithm to analyse photographs of almost 300 cabinet ministers and estimate their body-mass index (BMI), a measure of obesity. He found that the median BMI of a country’s cabinet is highly correlated with its level of corruption, as measured by indices compiled by the World Bank and Transparency International (see chart).

IN THE SOUTHERN English town of High Wycombe, the MP, mayor and councillors are publicly weighed every year in the town centre, in a self-described attempt to deter them from “gaining weight at taxpayers’ expense”. Cheers erupt if a lawmaker has shed a few pounds; boos await those who have put any on. The centuries-old tradition is conducted largely in jest, but the townsfolk might be on to something.

The more overweight the government, the more corrupt the country, according to a new study of 15 post-Soviet states. The study’s author, Pavlo Blavatskyy of Montpellier Business School in France, used an algorithm to analyse photographs of almost 300 cabinet ministers and estimate their body-mass index (BMI), a measure of obesity. He found that the median BMI of a country’s cabinet is highly correlated with its level of corruption, as measured by indices compiled by the World Bank and Transparency International (see chart).

ONE OF THE key features of the web is its ability to turn regular people into citizen journalists. The cost of publishing text on the web is almost nil. The barriers to entry in the media industry are low, too. And many readers are not picky about where their news comes from: the stories that go viral can come from amateur scribes or veteran ones, media startups or established outfits. But this is not always the case. New research suggests that when a crisis hits, readers turn to reliable sources.

In 2018 Paul Resnick and James Park, two researchers at the University of Michigan, devised a pair of tools for measuring the popularity of English-language news stories on Facebook and Twitter. The first, dubbed the “Mainstream Quotient”, measured the proportion of highly-shared links that came from mainstream news sources, such as the New York Times, the BBC and, yes, The Economist. The second, the “Iffy Quotient”, measured the share originating from less trustworthy sources,...

ONE OF THE key features of the web is its ability to turn regular people into citizen journalists. The cost of publishing text on the web is almost nil. The barriers to entry in the media industry are low, too. And many readers are not picky about where their news comes from: the stories that go viral can come from amateur scribes or veteran ones, media startups or established outfits. But this is not always the case. New research suggests that when a crisis hits, readers turn to reliable sources.

In 2018 Paul Resnick and James Park, two researchers at the University of Michigan, devised a pair of tools for measuring the popularity of English-language news stories on Facebook and Twitter. The first, dubbed the “Mainstream Quotient”, measured the proportion of highly-shared links that came from mainstream news sources, such as the New York Times, the BBC and, yes, The Economist. The second, the “Iffy Quotient”, measured the share originating from less trustworthy sources,...

ONE OF THE key features of the web is its ability to turn regular people into citizen journalists. The cost of publishing text on the web is almost nil. The barriers to entry in the media industry are low, too. And many readers are not picky about where their news comes from: the stories that go viral can come from amateur scribes or veteran ones, media startups or established outfits. But this is not always the case. New research suggests that when a crisis hits, readers turn to reliable sources.

In 2018 Paul Resnick and James Park, two researchers at the University of Michigan, devised a pair of tools for measuring the popularity of English-language news stories on Facebook and Twitter. The first, dubbed the “Mainstream Quotient”, measured the proportion of highly-shared links that came from mainstream news sources, such as the New York Times, the BBC and, yes, The Economist. The second, the “Iffy Quotient”, measured the share originating from less trustworthy sources,...

ONE OF THE key features of the web is its ability to turn regular people into citizen journalists. The cost of publishing text on the web is almost nil. The barriers to entry in the media industry are low, too. And many readers are not picky about where their news comes from: the stories that go viral can come from amateur scribes or veteran ones, media startups or established outfits. But this is not always the case. New research suggests that when a crisis hits, readers turn to reliable sources.

In 2018 Paul Resnick and James Park, two researchers at the University of Michigan, devised a pair of tools for measuring the popularity of English-language news stories on Facebook and Twitter. The first, dubbed the “Mainstream Quotient”, measured the proportion of highly-shared links that came from mainstream news sources, such as the New York Times, the BBC and, yes, The Economist. The second, the “Iffy Quotient”, measured the share originating from less trustworthy sources,...

ONE OF THE key features of the web is its ability to turn regular people into citizen journalists. The cost of publishing text on the web is almost nil. The barriers to entry in the media industry are low, too. And many readers are not picky about where their news comes from: the stories that go viral can come from amateur scribes or veteran ones, media startups or established outfits. But this is not always the case. New research suggests that when a crisis hits, readers turn to reliable sources.

In 2018 Paul Resnick and James Park, two researchers at the University of Michigan, devised a pair of tools for measuring the popularity of English-language news stories on Facebook and Twitter. The first, dubbed the “Mainstream Quotient”, measured the proportion of highly-shared links that came from mainstream news sources, such as the New York Times, the BBC and, yes, The Economist. The second, the “Iffy Quotient”, measured the share originating from less trustworthy sources,...

TO UPSET THE twittersphere often takes no more than sharing your thoughts. For David Shor, a data scientist who until recently worked for Civis Analytics, a Democratic polling firm, all it took was sharing someone else’s. On May 28th Mr Shor tweeted a straightforward summary of a paper by Omar Wasow, a Princeton professor, which argued that, in the 1960s, violent protests were less effective than non-violent ones at swaying American public opinion in favour of the civil-rights movement. (Several news outlets, including The Economist, covered the study when it was published.) Ordinarily such a tweet would not have caused a fuss. But given its timing, amid a wave of protests and civil unrest following the death of George Floyd, some Twitter users deemed the tweet hostile to the cause. Mr Shor’s bosses appear to have agreed. Two weeks after the offending post, he was sacked. (Mr Shor has signed a non-disclosure agreement which prevents him from disclosing why he was let...

EVEN BEFORE the pandemic sent pupils packing, there was a large gap in achievement between rich and poor students. In Britain in 2018, for example, children from disadvantaged backgrounds were twice as likely to leave school without basic qualifications in English and maths as their wealthier peers. After months of coronavirus-induced school closures, that gap has no doubt grown even wider.

With kids banned from classrooms, most learning has moved online. The shift has been easier for some than for others. In Britain, nearly two-thirds of private schools already had platforms for online learning in place, compared with just a quarter of the most poorly funded state schools, according to the Sutton Trust, a charity. Well-off children, meanwhile, are far more likely to have access to the necessary kit, including laptops and reliable broadband internet access. To reach the learning materials provided, many poorer ones have to compete with other family members for access to a...

EVEN BEFORE the pandemic sent pupils packing, there was a large gap in achievement between rich and poor students. In Britain in 2018, for example, children from disadvantaged backgrounds were twice as likely to leave school without basic qualifications in English and maths as their wealthier peers. After months of coronavirus-induced school closures, that gap has no doubt grown even wider.

With kids banned from classrooms, most learning has moved online. The shift has been easier for some than for others. In Britain, nearly two-thirds of private schools already had platforms for online learning in place, compared with just a quarter of the most poorly funded state schools, according to the Sutton Trust, a charity. Well-off children, meanwhile, are far more likely to have access to the necessary kit, including laptops and reliable broadband internet access. To reach the learning materials provided, many poorer ones have to compete with other family members for access to a...

EVEN BEFORE the pandemic sent pupils packing, there was a large gap in achievement between rich and poor students. In Britain in 2018, for example, children from disadvantaged backgrounds were twice as likely to leave school without basic qualifications in English and maths as their wealthier peers. After months of coronavirus-induced school closures, that gap has no doubt grown even wider.

With kids banned from classrooms, most learning has moved online. The shift has been easier for some than for others. In Britain, nearly two-thirds of private schools already had platforms for online learning in place, compared with just a quarter of the most poorly funded state schools, according to the Sutton Trust, a charity. Well-off children, meanwhile, are far more likely to have access to the necessary kit, including laptops and reliable broadband internet access. To reach the learning materials provided, many poorer ones have to compete with other family members for access to a...

AT THE beginning of spring much of Europe shut down to slow the spread of covid-19, which has infected nearly 3m people and taken the lives of about 200,000 in the continent’s 54 countries and territories, from the Atlantic to the Urals. The first wave of infections appears largely to have abated. Countries are returning to some semblance of normality—albeit with social-distancing measures in place. Now that governments are loosening restrictions on their citizens, the fear is that the virus could return.

EVEN BEFORE the pandemic sent pupils packing, there was a large gap in achievement between rich and poor students. In Britain in 2018, for example, children from disadvantaged backgrounds were twice as likely to leave school without basic qualifications in English and maths as their wealthier peers. After months of coronavirus-induced school closures, that gap has no doubt grown even wider.

With kids banned from classrooms, most learning has moved online. The shift has been easier for some than for others. In Britain, nearly two-thirds of private schools already had platforms for online learning in place, compared with just a quarter of the most poorly funded state schools, according to the Sutton Trust, a charity. Well-off children, meanwhile, are far more likely to have access to the necessary kit, including laptops and reliable broadband internet access. To reach the learning materials provided, many poorer ones have to compete with other family members for access to a...

LOCKDOWNS WERE particularly frustrating for football devotees, who had no live matches to watch while stuck at home. But the fans most pleased by the sport’s return may be statisticians. For them, empty stadiums are not a cheerless last resort, but rather a chance to tackle a great quandary: why do travelling teams tend to lose?

Most studies have blamed referees for trying to placate fans. In one experiment, officials were shown recorded games and asked how they would have ruled. They were kinder to home sides when they could hear baying fans than when the sound was muted. Some analyses of live matches have found more bias with denser crowds. Before this summer, few competitive fixtures were played without fans. One study from this May found just 160 cases since 2002. In this small sample, the home team’s edge vanished. Referees gave similar numbers of cards for fouls to both sides, and visitors won almost as often as hosts did.

This finding could easily be skewed...

AT THE beginning of spring much of Europe shut down to slow the spread of covid-19, which has infected nearly 3m people and taken the lives of about 200,000 in the continent’s 54 countries and territories, from the Atlantic to the Urals. The first wave of infections appears largely to have abated. Countries are returning to some semblance of normality—albeit with social-distancing measures in place. Now that governments are loosening restrictions on their citizens, the fear is that the virus could return.

LOCKDOWNS WERE particularly frustrating for football devotees, who had no live matches to watch while stuck at home. But the fans most pleased by the sport’s return may be statisticians. For them, empty stadiums are not a cheerless last resort, but rather a chance to tackle a great quandary: why do travelling teams tend to lose?

Most studies have blamed referees for trying to placate fans. In one experiment, officials were shown recorded games and asked how they would have ruled. They were kinder to home sides when they could hear baying fans than when the sound was muted. Some analyses of live matches have found more bias with denser crowds. Before this summer, few competitive fixtures were played without fans. One study from this May found just 160 cases since 2002. In this small sample, the home team’s edge vanished. Referees gave similar numbers of cards for fouls to both sides, and visitors won almost as often as hosts did.

This finding could easily be skewed...

LOCKDOWNS WERE particularly frustrating for football devotees, who had no live matches to watch while stuck at home. But the fans most pleased by the sport’s return may be statisticians. For them, empty stadiums are not a cheerless last resort, but rather a chance to tackle a great quandary: why do travelling teams tend to lose?

Most studies have blamed referees for trying to placate fans. In one experiment, officials were shown recorded games and asked how they would have ruled. They were kinder to home sides when they could hear baying fans than when the sound was muted. Some analyses of live matches have found more bias with denser crowds. Before this summer, few competitive fixtures were played without fans. One study from this May found just 160 cases since 2002. In this small sample, the home team’s edge vanished. Referees gave similar numbers of cards for fouls to both sides, and visitors won almost as often as hosts did.

This finding could easily be skewed...